UK schools turn on to IT

Demand for technology in UK schools is booming, according to educational IT vendor Research Machines (RM) which released healthy half year results today.

The company's pre-tax profits were up a massive 500 per cent to £2.5m from last half year's £0.5m, while turnover jumped 42 per cent to £17.8m.

RM said there is strong evidence to suggest that its success is based on the growing adoption of IT in schools and an increasingly large allocation of educational budgets dedicated to technology.

The announcement coincides with the first full year of the UK government's National Grid for Learning - a communications network for the education sector - which has stimulating enormous spending by schools.

Mike Greig, finance director at RM, said he expects the growth in IT spend to continue in the long term: "The government has a four year programme for putting IT in schools, but it will continue to spend on IT even after the National Grid for Learning."

Greig explained that schools, like businesses, are gradually increasingly the proportion of budget allocated to technology. "Currently most of the growth is spurred on by the Internet but there is also a lot of potential in learning software", he added.